I've lived a thousand lives watching shooting stars blast across waters stilled with reverence I've tied my prayers to a meteor for the grace to heal my life in stories….a blog on indigenous issues in America

For 14,000 Native Americans without heat or electricity, one minute of Keith Olbermann’s show was the attention they needed.

Less than a minute of air time. That’s all it took for Keith Olbermann to change the fate of Native Americans suffering one of the worst — and most ignored — natural disasters to hit the continental United States in years.

The Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota experienced debilitating ice storms and blizzards beginning on Jan. 22. The storms knocked out 2,500 utility poles and disrupted electricity and heat for 14,000 people, who were forced to live in sub-zero temperatures for nearly two weeks. Many homes were damaged, food spoiled, supplies dwindled to almost nothing, and all pleas for help seemed to fall on deaf ears.

Most of the media ignored this crisis, and despite calls for aid from the Sioux Nation, only $8,000 in donations had trickled in to help the reservation as of Feb. 9.

That’s when Keith Olbermann over at MSNBC took notice. In a brief segment of his show that night, Olbermann talked about the tragedy and the reservation’s need for immediate help, calling it a “humanitarian crisis at home.”

I’m not sure of the source on this but Monica Charles posted this on alt.native…

A defense lawyer for one of two men charged with the 1975 slaying of
an American Indian Movement member has accused prosecutors of putting
“erroneous and untrue” accusations in a court filing because the
alleged murder weapon was locked up at the time.

John Graham and Richard Marshall pleaded not guilty to charges they
committed or aided and abetted the Dec. 12, 1975, murder of Annie Mae
Aquash on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. They are scheduled to
stand trial starting May 12 in Rapid City, S.D.

The government’s theory is that Marshall gave a .32-caliber revolver
and shells to Graham, Arlo Looking Cloud and Theda Clark, who stopped
by Marshall’s house with Aquash around Dec. 12, 1975.

According to court testimony, hours later, after taking her to a cliff
in the Badlands, Looking Cloud gave Graham the gun, he shot Aquash as
she prayed, and then the two men buried the weapon nearby under a
bridge and it never was found.

At the time, Marshall was awaiting trial for killing Martin Montileaux
on March 1, 1975, a crime for which he was later convicted.

Marshall
Prosecutors asked the judge to allow evidence that the .32-caliber
pistol used to kill Aquash could have been the same one seized when
Marshall was arrested for the Montileaux murder.

But Marshall’s attorney, Dana Hanna, responded that his client
couldn’t have had the gun when Aquash was killed because it was in
placed in police custody in March 1975 and offered as evidence at the
April 1976 trial in which Marshall was convicted of killing
Montileaux.

RICHARD MARSHALL

Hanna included with his filing a court transcript of the trial in
which South Dakota Highway Patrolman Merlyn Muir testified he
recovered the gun after Marshall was arrested.

After the shooting, law enforcement officers chased and caught a 1968
Ford carrying Marshall and seven other people.

Muir said he found the .32-caliber revolver under the right front
seat. Four other guns also were seized from the car, including a .22-
caliber pistol used to kill Montileaux.

Hanna argued that the .32-caliber pistol was never directly tied to
Marshall.

And a receipt showing the car’s release to a woman on June 1, 1975,
does not indicate if any of the guns were returned, only the car’s
“contents,” he wrote.

The transcript of Muir’s testimony shows that the .32-caliber gun was
offered as an exhibit. It was not received into evidence because it
played no part in the Montileaux case, Hanna wrote.

The defense lawyer wrote that such “easily discoverable and available
facts” prove Marshall didn’t have access to the gun from March 1975 to
April 1976.

“Obviously, it could not have been the gun that was used to kill Anna
Mae Aquash on December 12, 1975,” Hanna wrote.

“It is demonstrably, provably, false, based upon the court records,”
he said in an interview.

U.S. Attorney Marty Jackley is not allowed to comment on pending
cases.

In his motion, Hanna argued that besides the gun, prosecutors also
should not be allowed to tell jurors about Marshall’s conviction for
the Montileaux murder.

He included the Montileaux trial transcript of neurosurgeon Dr. Edward
James, who testified that Montileaux was shot in the neck from the
front and the bullet severed his spinal cord, which paralyzed him,
then lodged in his shoulder. He died days later of pneumonia.

Hanna argued the government wants to include the Montileaux murder on
grounds the circumstances are similar, but Aquash was killed with a
bullet to the back of the head. The person who shot Montileaux was
facing him, he wrote.

“The facts of the defendant’s prior offense have absolutely no
connection or relevance to the killing of Anna Mae Aquash,” Hanna
wrote.

Clarke, who lives in a western Nebraska nursing home, has not been
charged. Looking Cloud was convicted in 2004 for his role in Aquash’s
murder and sentenced to life in prison.

With all of the twists and turns in this story… peoples opinions … finger pointing…. Dana Hannah (defense attorney for Richard Marshall) has written out a good simple explanation of the charges against Mr. Marshall.

For the very few regular readers I have had to neglect the blog due to work…hard to build a blog when rent, food and my high speed internet need to be paid! Were I more organized I would have posts lined up…and I’m not sure that Monica has her computer fixed yet..

The fine state of Oregon has been receiving much needed rain for the last month but yesterday the skies were blue!!! And I ran into these totem poles in the little town of Wimer. There was an info box near on of them but it was empty…

This is the back of the pole…the front could not be photographed properly due to the shadow…..

there is a little wooden fence with little animals carved on them….but the light was so bad that none of the photos turned out….except this one…which of course is not an animal…I’ll have to go earlier in the day another time.

Unfortunately the back of this little totem is in the shade but has an interesting character on the back…

and close up of the hands…..

the other pictures didn’t turn out at all so once again I will have to photograph it in better light..

I have been reading a lot on and off about the murder of Anna Mae Aquash trial….blogs…THE UNQUIET GRAVE….a discussion group called alt.native where much arguing takes place…

There are basically two sides…One that says John Graham and Richard Marshall are guilty and the other side that says the FBI is equally responsible….I tend to side with the latter group. I have two major reasons one is that the FBI has continually supported a known rapist and killer ex congressman and governor Bill Janklow during the years AIM was most active on Pine Ridge. The second reason is that while I have opened my blog to the supporters of the FBI when ever I question ANYTHING I get a hostile response. Not sort of hostile but ugly hostile. This is an exchange from my other blog ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST…. with a pro FBI/convict John Graham/Richard Marshall supporter who goes by the name Snapple (whom I suspect is retired SAC Joseph Trimbach) I had put up a video on the main page of my blog at his request but apparently he could not see it…so this is the comment he left. I responded to it in bold and parenthesis.

You are obviously a stupid little idiot who is not able to argue honestly if you choose to make something of an older person’s typing error. And lazy and dishonest not to post TWo Elk’s recent video.

Monica and Anna Mae both were both reportedly in a relationship to Dennis Banks, although he was married to Ka-Mook.(Noo….Monica Charles says she was not in a relationship with Dennis Banks and what is your source to such a claim? Do you just throw that stuff out there hoping a sex scandal will spice things up? You sound like the NATIONAL ENQUIRER!)

Monica’s brother (where do you get your information??? Do you think everybody with the last name of Charles is Monicas brother???) Norman was allegedly with Peltier when the FBI agents were shot.

Monica is pretty much at ground zero and spends a lot of time discrediting Indians such as Richard Two Elk and Ka-Mook, who have told the authorities what they witnessed so that there would be evidence to take to court.(Didn’t Ka-Mook get paid 49,000 for her testimony? She basically testified heresay and seven months later married one of the governments lead investigators in the Anna Mae Aquash case. From what I understand Richard Two Elk’s testimony is so bad and he has put out so many conflicting stories that he is not taken too seriously on the stand….or by PBS.)

Here is something Two Elk said about what Dennis Banks ordered boys to do during the occupation:

“I was there, at Wounded Knee. At the age of 19, I backpacked weapons and supplies into the village with my AIM brothers. I remember it was near Easter, because that’s when our leader, Dennis Banks, ordered us to ‘take care’ of a young white guy, suspected of being an informant. We knew what that meant. We strung him up on a cross in a mock crucifixion, and beat him. After we took him down, they led him away and I don’t think he was ever heard from again.”(Richard Two Elk has apparently written several different versions of this incident…If this is true why have the FBI not prosecuted him for murder???)

Agnes Gildersleeve testified that Indian people were held in a church and threatened with guns. AIM took over a disabled man’s trailer and other people’s homes.

Agnes recounts:

“[AIM] took complete control of the telephone service and local residents were not permitted to answer any of the phones. When my phone would ring, an armed guard would immediately answer the phone and direct the call over to [disabled Wilber Reigert’s stolen] trailer house where Banks, Means, and Bellecourt were located…” (Trimbach p. 88) (The Gildersleeves were well known for taking advantage of Native Americans at their trading post…selling objects offensive to Native Americans. Here is Steve Hendricks talking about the Gildersleeves:

Tim Giago writes that I unfairly impugned the honor of the late Clive and Agnes Gildersleeve. The Gildersleeves owned the trading post at Wounded Knee, which was looted by militants who had seized the village to protest oppression on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and beyond. Sloppily lumping my book The Unquiet Grave with Peter Matthiessen’s In The Spirit of Crazy Horse, Giago writes, “In [the two books], you will read about a ‘white man’ and a woman often referred to as a ‘white woman,’ although Agnes Gildersleeve was an Ojibwa woman, who ‘ripped off’ the local Lakota people. This apparently justifies the attacks upon them and the destruction of their business.”

I did not write that Ms. Gildersleeve was white, did not use the words “ripped off” (though they are not far from the truth), and did not excuse the attack on them or their business. I did explain why many Indians hated the business:

“Its owners, the Gildersleeve and Czywczynski families, had strewn billboards for seventy-five miles that announced, SEE THE WOUNDED KNEE MASSACRE SITE, VISIT THE MASS GRAVE. POSTCARDS, CURIOS, DON’T MISS IT! The postcards showed slaughtered Indians, including Chief Big Foot, frozen in the 1890 snow. The traders enlivened their commerce with beadwork, quilts, and other curios bought low from Oglalas and sold high. A Catholic priest once watched Mrs. Czywczynski barter a beader to a stingy $3.50 for an exquisite work, then turn around and sell it for $12.00. The traders doubled as creditors, lending their Indian patrons $10 at humble interest of $2.25 a week. As village postmasters, they also offered a rudimentary auto-payment–opening the mail of customers who had run tabs, cashing their checks without asking, paying their bills at the post, and calling other shopkeepers across the reservation to see if debts were owed them too. There had been calls to boycott the post, but none had worked. The post was the only store for a dozen miles, and the many carless Oglalas of Wounded Knee had no choice but to buy groceries and other wares at its inflated prices. Years later Clive Gildersleeve was called to testify about his business practices, and he invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself ninety-nine times.”

Giago goes on to paint me as an apologist for the American Indian Movement, which led the Indian rights struggle of the 1970s. This is rank distortion. Mine was the first book to describe AIM’s secret killing inside Wounded Knee of an activist named Ray Robinson, and the book’s centerpiece was AIM’s infamous execution of Anna Mae Aquash two years later. As Giago well knows, I condemned AIM sharply for these and lesser brutalities, and more than one AIM leader has threatened me for my pains. What riles Giago is that I also praised AIM (the overwhelming majority of whose members were peaceful) for fighting oppression, and I denuded the oppressors, from small-timers like the Gildersleeves to big-timers like the FBI, the latter of which persistently goaded AIM to just the sort of violence it committed. In Indian Country, the haves like Giago have long fought to keep the have-nots in their place. It is one reason the have-nots are still so multitudinous.

The problem I have aside from the hostility is that this side is always reduced to anger and sex towards women…The accusation that Monica Charles was sleeping with Dennis Banks is just mean and vile. Monica denies this and I believe her…I’m not judgmental she wasn’t married….and even if it was true and I don’t believe it is….what the hell does that have to do with any thing? Could we get a list of Richard Two Elks and Paul Demains lovers..does anyone bring that up??? So basically what I find when I ask any questions from the pro-conviction of John Graham/Richard Marshall side is the unreasonable hostile responses. On the other hand when ever I ask Monica Charles, David Seals (who has been subpoenaed by the defense) or Steve Hendricks author of THE UNQUIET GRAVE. They have no problem answering questions…its just the difference of people who have something to hide or are covering up something and those who just want real justice…no matter the outcome.

The upcoming trial of John Graham and Richard Marshall is just too much…it should be a study at Harvard Law in what is wrong with our legal system…people getting convicted…spend years in jail…and this murder case is so layered with corruption it is mind boggling. Layer after layer of lies and finger pointing by the FBI trying to get convictions while taking no responsibility for their own COINTELPRO tactics which lead to the death of Anna Mae Aquash….AIM leaders who descended into a haze of paranoia now turn on each other each with their own story of what happened and who pulled the trigger. I can’t imagine with all of the who dunnits how in this case justice can ever be served.

The defense has asked a
federal judge not to allow convicted murderer Arlo Looking Cloud to
testify at the Feb. 16 murder trial of Richard “Dickie” Marshall and
John Graham, saying Looking Cloud intends to provide false testimony
about the 1975 slaying of American Indian Movement activist Annie Mae
Aquash.

Dana Hanna, who represents Marshall, filed the motion in U.S. District
Court last week. Hanna said the government’s key witness would be
Looking Cloud, who was tried and convicted of first-degree murder in
2004 in connection with Aquash’s death.

At Looking Cloud’s trial, Richard Two Elk testified that Looking Cloud
had admitted to him that he handed a gun to Graham at the murder scene
and that Graham then used that gun to murder Aquash.

“I have subpoenaed and listened to tape recordings of telephone calls
made by Looking Cloud from jail, after he agreed to testify for the
government in August 2008, in which he tells his wife, relatives and
friends that he views his testimony in Mr. Marshall’s trial as an
opportunity to convince the triers of fact and the court that he was
wrongly convicted of Aquash’s murder,” Hanna wrote in the motion.

“In those conversations, Looking Cloud has repeatedly told his wife,
his relatives and his friends that when he testifies as a government
witness in the trial, he will testify that he was innocent of aiding
and abetting Aquash’s murder, that he had no intent to murder her, and
that he was wrongly convicted in his trial, which he has characterized
as a ‘kangaroo court,’” the motion reads. “It is evident from these
conversations that Looking Cloud intends to falsely testify that he
had no criminal intent to help murder Aquash and that he was innocent
of the murder for which he was convicted.”

Hanna said government prosecutors know or should know that Looking
Cloud intends to commit perjury when he is cross-examined. He has
asked for a pre-trial evidentiary hearing.

Looking Cloud is serving a life sentence. In his motion, Hanna also
noted that Looking Cloud has filed a motion to set aside his 2004
conviction, claiming he was wrongfully convicted due to ineffective
counsel and government misconduct.

If Looking Cloud were to be granted a new trial, anything he might say
on the stand at the upcoming murder trial could be used against him in
a new trial.

“It is therefore entirely foreseeable that Looking Cloud will continue
to deny his guilt and intent to murder Aquash if he is allowed to
testify in Mr. Marshall’s trial,” Hanna wrote.

U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Piersol has not ruled on whether he
will schedule a pre-trial hearing on the matter.